Believing is Seeing

No one after lighting a lamp puts it in a cellar or under a basket, but on a stand, so that those who enter may see the light. 34 Your eye is the lamp of your body. When your eye is healthy, your whole body is full of light, but when it is bad, your body is full of darkness. 35 Therefore be careful lest the light in you be darkness. 36 If then your whole body is full of light, having no part dark, it will be wholly bright, as when a lamp with its rays gives you light.

(Luke 11: 33-36)

We have all heard the axiom: “seeing is believing.” It is a pithy way of saying that only hard, concrete evidence is convincing. However, this saying assumes a lot. One thing it assumes is that our eyes do not lie to us. But is this true? Recently on the news I came across a report about baseball. This report said that the baseball mechanics of throwing a fast ball have all been mistaken. New computer models are contradicting traditional wisdom. How?—the reporter asked. The answer: “our eyes lie to us.”

Not only do our eyes lie to us, but so do our minds and hearts. On a spiritual/moral level, the reason why our eyes, minds, hearts lie to us is because of sin. Apart from the “lamp” of Christ, sin darkens the eye; sin dims the mind; sin blackens the heart! Disbelief is a function of the soul wracked with sin and guilt. Sin and guilt distort reality from inside and out! This is, in one sense, what our Lord means when he says, “Therefore be careful lest the light in you be darkness.” Without the light of Christ, seeing is believing a lie!

However, the light of Christ is the wisdom of God. Faith (the topic of last month’s article) is a function of a soul liberated from sin and guilt. Faith brightens the eye; faith illumines the mind; faith whitens the heart! This is, in one sense, what our Lord means when he says, “If then your whole body is full of light, having no part dark, it will be wholly bright, as when a lamp with its rays gives you light.” With the light of Christ’s wisdom believing is seeing the truth! This is what C. S. Lewis meant when he said in a famous quotes: “I believe in Christianity as I believe that the sun has risen: not only because I see it, but because by it I see everything else.”

In the book, Raised? Finding Jesus by Doubting the Resurrection, author Jonathan Dodson writes, “The resurrection is a dividing line—a parting claim.” Here’s how he illustrates that “dividing line”:

The resurrection is like a river that parts a road. People are on the road approaching the river. Arriving at the river of the resurrection, you look across it to where the road continues and see quite a few cars are there. In your doubt, you can’t imagine how people got to the other side of the river. How did they get across? How can rational people come to the belief that Jesus died and rose from the dead?

Faith is the unnoticed ferry, lying hidden near the bank of the river that can take us from the riverbank of doubt … to the other side of belief in the resurrection. [But] it’s not blind faith … You don’t cross by closing your eyes and wishing Jesus’ resurrection was true. No. You cross with your eyes wide open. This is an informed faith, faith in a historical plausible resurrection, attested by hundreds of witnesses, one proven to be worth believing.

In conclusion, you’ll notice there is a dividing line. On one side, there are those who see in order to believe; on the other side, there are those who believe in order to see. The resurrection of Christ is God’s proclamation that believing is seeing the truth, the truth that we are sinners in need of a savior! What side of the line are you on? If you are wracked with sin and guilt receive him now! Repent and believe! Let Christ spiritually resurrect you from death to life today in hopes also of a bodily resurrection when He returns for His church!

Let us close with this prayer from John Piper:

“Lord, open the eyes of our hearts to see the supreme greatness of your wisdom and power. Make our eyes good. Heal our blindness. Fill us with the all-pervading, all-exposing, all-purifying, all-pleasing light of your presence.”

Soli Deo Gloria

Carl